You put

very adjuration of cheerfulness has made you friends. your icy hand upon the very human heart of Pauperism, and cry your curse upon its poor narrow tenure of enjoyment, whilst she tickles the feeble appetite of all enjoying convention, by mawkish episodes regarding cold and hunger; very pleasant to read over a glowing fire; very digestive, possibly, after a luxurious meal. "Yet, my moralities teach not," thinks the moralist: "it must be owing to the spirit of the time;""and my novels come forth today, and die to-morrow in a fashionable gazette," meditates the little lady. Yes, moralist; yes, novelist; it is "the spirit of the time," which, disregarding the false, is teaching the universal and the true; which, disregarding the moralities of man, is teaching the moralities of nature, benignant now as from the beginning; which is looking onward, not retrospectively; which sees visions nearer to God, than dull dreams of Time's senility; which is teaching its generation not to be lookers-on, but actors; and which is teaching it the wisdom of faith in goodness, cheerfulness, hope. Till your moralities teach with this progressive sign, fruitless and barren will they be; till in your novels you put the common human heart, they will not sell. Moralist and novelist, I tell you so! But my verdict waits!

Set down at the Bank, the philosophic friends walk onward side by side, through narrow streets, dull courts, reeking alleys, till they stand within an ancient city grave-yard, where the dust of countless generations makes the earth-covering for the festering pauperism of yesterday. Yet even here the cheerful principle of life stands out as God's best angel, triumphant above the fearinvested change which Priestcraft calls Death, which Nature teaches is but a new step onward in the great spiritual march of Time. A daisy here, a tuft of sod there; broad pathways of sunlight above the workhouse grave, as above the costly marble of the plethora-killed alderman; kneeling angels in the sun-gloried windows, typifying faith on earth and glory in heaven, still kneeling at their inaudible centuries of prayer; a caged yet joyous lark beside the cobbler's window across the churchyard wall, are visible not, for the moralist has already commenced his calculations, and so makes his way towards the sexton, who is shovelling the earth just beside the church porch.

Now it happens that Tapps, the above-mentioned lark-possessing cobbler, has been lured by the bright sun from awl and lapstone, and is standing there too, just as the moralist inquires of Mope the

sexton the number and amount of burials made yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily. When this information is noted down, there, is a fresh question as to age, sex, diseases.

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Why," replies Mope, after a moment's consideration, "they go off for want o' wittles, and I take it that thousands lie here, as wouldn't a bin coffined, if there'd bin an easy way to the baker's shop. For when the quartern loaf gits up a farthing, says I there 'll be work in 't this week; so it's true, 'specially in babies.'

"And what makes the loaf dear, and the way to the baker's shop difficult?" asks the moralist, certain of a prime shot presently both into the ears of the twinkle-eyed cobbler, and the dull sexton. Why, why," considers the sexton, and appealing by look to why a very little corn the one, and a very little money

64

Tapps,

t'other."

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"No! my man," replies the wise moralist, "knowledge hasn't reached you, I see. It's a want of moral restraint that fills churchyards, and crams workhouses, makes bread dear, and brings a curse upon the world. A man that has less than a hundred a year shouldn't marry; if he does, he acts against the laws of God and man. Too many creatures are born to starve, and rot, and die; and it isn't till nations pass laws against marriage, excepting only the case of the rich, that bread will be plentiful, and the coming ruin of the world prevented. You see I do not preach without being a sort of moral precept in my own person. I am not married."

"So far you beat Malthus, sir, I think," says Tapps, “for he first put sich a thing a-going, though he knew very well he was plucking a feather out of a Scotchman's cap. But now, sir, jist allow me to ask you one natural question :-Are you, with that clever-looking little lady by your side-are you the happier for not being married to her?

The little lady blushes, her heart beats, she turns away: the cobbler has propounded the first and foremost secret of her soul. But the moralist looks grave.

"The law of moral duty and that of nature are two different things; knowing this, am I to add another fraction to the predoomed woe of human misery?"

"Begging your pardon," says the casuist cobbler, "the laws of duty and nature are one; and I take it, that there's a deal of wise heads now, as look upon Parson Malthus's population affair as a great bubble, that wasted a deal o' ink and paper, and that is

not all the pain besides; for ye see, sir, it ain't every parson's crotchets as are quite so harmless as was that dear old Parson Adams's about his bits o' sermons. And now, sir, if there is sumfen o' the truth in this here early marriage matter, what's the cause on't?"

"Man's natural bad passions, or perhaps, rather some inherent principle of nature to over-populate beyond its means of subsistence; that thus only within a mark and bound, civilization shall make progress; that men shall dream futilely of a perpetual summer-time, forgetting the swarm of locusts that hover over to destroy."

"Well, sir, I differ," goes on the cobbler, digging his right hand stoutly into his left. "It's ignorance. Make a poor man less a brute; teach him, and there 'll be the salve, I take it. Now, if Parson Malthus had written a good spelling-book, or a good storybook for instance, or a sumfen that would a really taught what a beautiful place this earth is, how full of blessings for every human creature as has breath, he'd a done more to cure wickedness o' the flesh, than he did with that sharp book o' his, which the bishops thumbed and thought sich a might about. Now, give a man sumfen to think about beside the public-house and the skittleground; give him cheap meat and bread, so as he may fill his belly, and then I take it ye'll find him a being as can reason, as won't slip into poverty on purpose, but keep single till there's a sumfen for a wife and bits o' children; and then if he doesn't have 'em, the Lord bless his heart, it ain't in the right place, and I wouldn't give tuppence for 't. For, what's made my life a bit of a sunny thing, so that I've often had a heart as light as that lark as is a singing there? why, my missis; for if I have a trouble she helps to take it; and as for children, taking the good and evil together, they're the flowers which God has himself set in the path of a poor man's life; it's only want o' bread as makes children a sort o' thorns in the way o' poor struggling human creeturs." "All very well, Mr. Tapps," says the moralist, somewhat pettishly; human happiness, and more mouths than bread, are arguments that destroy one another. If you over-populate the

earth

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"If," interrupts Tapps, "the doubt 's very strong here. Why, in this here nation, what makes bread dear, and fills up with parish coffins sich a place as this as Mope rigilates? Why, bad laws. Now put these down, instead o' bilding workhouses, and separating a man from his better self, and there 'll come corn

enough. For the earth is broad and fruitful, and natar's storehouse not half laid open. Then, when the world's ships may go free, when man may freely reap and sow, when ye 've made him a feelin' sensible creetur, knowing good from evil, he 'll marry and be given in marriage, without more fear o' over-populating the earth than filling the sea with too many fishes. And to this time I take it the world is a-going forard too, in spite o' Parson Malthus and his scholars. In God's works there is no flaw, though man's great solemn books may say there is. And so, sir, git married there's figlosofi in it: and as I take it ye write books, let them be sich as 'll help poor creeturs into the light o' wisdom. And so, sir, git married, and give a verdict for Time against the Surrey Parson. For ye 'll take the words o' Solomon, I reckon, better than sich as come from a cobbler; and what says he on these two pints o' a wife and population? why, sumfen wiser than the Thus:parson. "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord" ('specially if she's a quiet tongue); and the t'other: "In the multitude of people is the king's honour, and in the want of people is the destruction of the prince." Only I'd suggist in this latter case, that one should have God's honour, instid o' kings', and the destruction of glorious human natur, instid o' them bits o' things in purple that men call princes. And so, sir, git married.”

Just as Mr. Tapps has thus advised the moralist, what should step forth from the cool porch into the warm sunlight, but a strapping young fellow in a bran-new blue coat, and on his arm such a little tiny, happy, trembling human flower, though not over brave in money-bought gaudiness, that Mechlin lace never shrouded in purer or prouder blushes. Well, they have just been married: the parson's blessing is yet an echo! Why, here is enough in strapping Tom Kittletink's looks, to confute the world's trumpet-blast against happiness unless in purple. Tapps wickedly winks, and chirps a merry ha ha! as hearty as his lark hard by; the sexton rests on his spade; the moralist places his foot on a newly upturned skull, it may be accidentally, though I am afraid he had not such wisdom as Yorick had to raise a glorious truth from insentient dust. Tapps, like his lark, has the first note, and it is a cheerful one, for he stops Tom Kittletink right short, and thus adds a deeper glow to the little bride's downcast face.

"And so Tom," says Tapps, "this gentleman as is a noting

down the 'rithmetic o' dead human creeturs, as sharp as a parish boy at an apple-stall-and all I take it for them here Parliament men-says as how to git married is to fall into the pit o' destruction, and so you'd better go home and make a day o' weeping on 't."

"Of merry-making," says Tom, all joyous, "as is proper with Mary here, and a stuffed loin of pork and a precious plumpudding. What! cry? Why, Lord bless the gentleman, a wedding day does but come once in a life; and it's worth a world o' care to come that once, as I think."

"The happiness of a day, the misery of years, my friend," speaks the now somewhat abstracted moralist, "the workhouse, the parish coffin, the slow-paced eleemosynary doctor, the screaming child, the destitution, the want of mere bread, and last of all, the earth, this earth, you understand?

"I do, master," speaks out Tom Kittletink still more stoutly, *"* and I 've looked as far into the matter as a hard-working man, as a Barbican brazier with no better learning than sich as parish schools strap and badge upon the poor can do, and I don't see that God made sich blessed little creatures as my Mary here, as flowers only to be worn in proud rich men's bosoms. Why, hope's for all on us, the sun's for all on us, and a man might as well persistingly sit under a big down-turned biler, when the sun's shining, as to always be looking for'ards to evil. Not that we are a-going to rush into the parish arms as I say it's only when a man can't be worser off that he does that. But here I was, with fifteen shillings a-week a-coming in, a decent second floor back, a few bits o' things towards housekeeping, and Mary a-pining and moping by herself, and both on us loving children, and wishing to have 'em to teach and make 'em better than ourselves; and so I thought, as God didn't say no, them as go about with tracts and sich like shouldn't, and so we 've seen the parson, and now we're jist off to the roast pork and pudding, not envying a mortal human creature, but thankful for what I am, and for Mary here, sir."

"And I prophecy

began the moralist.

"I say, sir," interrupts Tom Kittletink, " you must think better o' sich as us, and give us a lift by yer learning, instead of helping to put us down into the churchyard dust, as too many do. And I say, if ye will look thus in God's manner, ye 'll be married by this day next year. For, Lord sir, there's a little flower there